Ahhhhh, The Daily Show.

Just when I'm hit my gloomiest over what feels like a tidal wave of anti-gay sentiment, including Day Five of the Mary Cheney hostage crisis*--which reveals such an undercurrent of gay hostility and apprehension I had lost sight of--and Salon's latest cover story, Homosexuals Are Hellbound! about all the anti-gay state constitutional amendments on the Nov ballot, and the horror show it's producing in Ohio, and then I flip on my Tivo for a little light viewing while I do the dishes.

It seems Samantha B (Bee?) has discovered a gaping loophole in all these amendments outlawing gay marriage. Roy and Siloh have been cohabiting together for five years. Openly. In Central Park.

They live in the zoo. They're penguins. There are three gay couples living there, among the penguins. Countless other animals.

"Just because it happens in nature, does not make it natural," Samatha Bee snapped at the zookeeper.

"Ummmmm." It took him awhile to get the words out, but eventually he responded, "I think by definition, that actually does."

She also points out the obvious dangers. Penguins are already dressed in tuxedos, just like grooms. So if kids believe penguins can be gay, then so can grooms. And then what's to stop groom and penguin marraiges?" Heeheehee. I won't even try to describe the animation, of penguin and groom joining hands.

I feel better already.

Hopefully none of these amendments will be wielded against Roy and Siloh. They will continue living blissfully onward, just as God intended.

*I stole that hostage-crisis line from Salon.

Arianna Huffington just posted an incredible column about New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey coming out and resigning.

It thoughtful and articulate throughout, but it also raised an idea I had not considered, but seems so obvious in retrospect:

It's hard to resist playing armchair psychoanalyst and wondering: Did McGreevey unconsciously make certain choices -- like putting his lover on the government payroll in a high-profile position he was not qualified for -- in order to force upon himself Thursday's public announcement: "I am a gay American"?

Of course that's really dangerous, but the more I sat there pondering it, I wish she had continued that line of thought. And then I read on. And she did:

We can't, of course, know what was going on in McGreevey's psyche, but hiring his lover, Golan Cipel -- an Israeli foreign national unable to obtain a federal security clearance to be the homeland security czar of New Jersey (and at a salary of $110,000 a year, no less) -- is the height of recklessness, and only makes sense as a taxpayer-funded cry for help. Clearly no good could come of such an appointment -- unless the governor was unconsciously hoping that the appointment would eventually force his hand.

The reason this idea has such a hold of me, is because I've seen it play out that way so many times. With homosexuality in particular, and characteristics we're ashamed of in general. We just can't bring ourselves to admit them, so we force ourselves into a situation to get them out.

I know one guy whose girlfriend found some embarassing photos, and the poor little weasel--after squirming and denying awhile, finally latched onto a better idea. He suggested she talk it through with his mom, who had a similar reaction, and was the one person who could empathize. The girlfriend made the call. His mom knew nothing. Until the call. His dad drove all the way from Seattle to Denver to get him.

The things we'll do to free ourselves of the bondage. It seems so silly in retrospect, because the weight we were dragging around looks so puny now that we have unloaded it and see it for the ghost it always was. But on our backs . . .

Here's how Arianna begins to wrap it up:

By the time the curtain comes up on this drama’s Act Five we could be in the middle of a serious political scandal that may force McGreevey to step down even before Nov. 15. Or we may be in the middle of his political resurrection, looking not at a tortured politician with a secret draining away precious energy but a free man fully -- and finally -- accepting himself. Either way, he had to practically drive the car right off the cliff in order to put himself on the road to Thursday’s declaration. And that's an indictment of our society and our political culture wars.

Man, she sure knows how it feels. (Except, "practically" off the cliff? As far as his career goes, not to mention his marriage--pretty much everything he ever dreamed of, he's crashing into the jagged rocks right now. But better that than up on that horrible cliff.

Of course she gets it, her husband came out. And for every one of us, I think it feels that way: driving the car right off the cliff is the only way to get there.

First the California Supreme Court annulled all those gay marriages performed in San Francisco, now the governor of New Jersey has resigned because he was gay.

What? Resigned because he was gay? And had an affair? That one doesn't quite make sense. Surely there's more to come out. Politicians admit to affairs all the time, and I can't remember one resigning over it.

I'm not sure what the silver lining is here--another signal to straight people that there are gays hiding among us all over the place? That lots of normal people they respecte enough to elect governor are gay?

Or perhaps just one more indication for arch-conservatives trying to stamp out homosexuality--or whatever it is they think they're doing; "discouraging" it?--of what they're really accomplishing: Persuading gay men to marry our sisters and daughters. Who is being served by that?

I don't think it will sink in for the hardcore anti-gays--who will just say this guy lacked the morality or willpower to stick by the straight path he was attempting--but perhaps it will occur to some level-headed straight people in the middle.

Especially if they read the transcript. It's heartbreaking. And brief enough to read in about a minute and a half.

This part really chocked me up:

Yet, from my early days in school, until the present day, I acknowledged some feelings, a certain sense that separated me from others. But because of my resolve, and also thinking that I was doing the right thing, I forced what I thought was an acceptable reality onto myself . . .

I do not believe that God tortures any person simply for its own sake. I believe that God enables all things to work for the greater good. And this, the 47th year of my life, is arguably too late to have this discussion. But it is here, and it is now.

At a point in every person's life, one has to look deeply into the mirror of one's soul and decide one's unique truth in the world, not as we may want to see it or hope to see it, but as it is.

And so my truth is that I am a gay American.

I whined quite a bit last summer that it was too early, way too dangerously early to be plunging ahead into gay marriage. We had not sufficiently prepared the public, I had convinced myself.

Wrong, wrong, looks like I was dead wrong, as I have admitted here repeatedly since. But I really wasn't prepared for the big yawn out of Massacheusetts last month. No one seems to even be noticing.

I wonder how much it is the war. Quite a bit, I think. Nothing like a good national crisis to put priorities in place. Too much idle time on our hands can be a bad thing, right? Just gives all those straight people time to sit around fretting what gay marriage might do to them.

(Not to mention both discrediting the champions of the opposition, and forcing them to drop the stupid battle to take on something really imporant, like their appalling mismanagement of the war.)

And the one-two punch of a war on the heals of a troubled economy, all the better. The big question now is which will matter more in November--can the economy push the war back off center stage? I doubt it, personally, but either way, gay marriage just seem too trivial for most people to spend their time on today. Frank Rich in today's column:

But Massachusetts's wedding day proved to be the show dog that didn't bark. Americans merely shrugged, confirming polls both before and after that fateful day: voters rate same-sex marriage dead last in importance among issues in an election year dominated by a runaway real war.

(The column is hysterical, as usual, by the way, in a good way, of course.)

But I also think the San Francisco marriages helped. Get people used to it gradually. That just happened so suddenly, and as Joan Walsh wrote at the time, suddenly it seemed so inevitable: there's really no turning back after that. So those marriages may not end up standing up in the courts, but the couples have done their work for the rest of us. They pushed us all right past the what-if stage. What if men and men and women and women got married to each other, not just in their own private ceremonies, but legally, with bone fide marriage certificates issued by the actual government? Nothing, apparently. The sky didn't fall.

So when it happened again in Massacheusetts? What straight person was even going to be interested enough to watch that rerun. You can only get excited about it so many times. And the first time you see gay people kiss can be shocking--I still remember witnessing my first; I was still a straight guy, and I wasn't so much shocked as disgusted. But I got over it pretty fast. Even with all my internalized homophobia over my own situation simmering just under the surface.

Most straight people prolly weren't dialing up Nightline that night specifically to learn what was up with the homos, but if they happened to have the tube tuned to that channel they may well have sat there and watched. Or they can across the images elsewhere and will again in the future. No avoiding them, really.

Apparently I was just being a big chicken. Maybe the public was ready.

But it sure helps to have the war going on.